Children will be children
by Dantriestobeproductive
Summary: Kakashi had a stalker in the form of a six years old child hellbent in making his life miserable. Murder was being considered.


Kakashi had a little demon on his tail. Or, more accurately, he had a very persistent, really annoying civilian Academy-hopeful stalker who, for all that he was a disgrace to Shinobi code almost worse than Obito (and he was giving the kid slack because he still wasn't in the Academy, and could always not become a ninja after all), had an uncanny ability to prank _any_ shinobi, no matter their rank.

Kakashi had scoffed at first, watching colleagues twice his age fall into prank after prank to the little terror, and had thought them an embarrassment for shinobi all around, but then it had been his turn, and Kakashi had been thoroughly _pissed_.

(All things considered, the blow on his ego had been the most bruised thing in the whole ordeal, even if Kakashi had ended up with glittering pink sandals, bright blue hair and a fluorescent shirt with 'BAKASHI' painted in big red letters on the back.)

Obito had laughed, loudly, when Kakashi had been forced to go to the scheduled team training with still-bluish hair, and Minato had had to bodily stop him from murdering the loudmouth right there and with his most rusty kunai (which he would've stolen from Obito anyways, because Kakashi kept all his equipment top-notch). When Minato had inquired about the hair, though, Kakashi had turned a furious shade of red that had made him more than grateful that he carried a mask around all the time, though he'd still dutifully reported on the blond menace that had obviously escaped from the hospital's mental ward. Minato had winced and nodded, knowing _exactly who_ he was referring to, and mentioned something about the kid being Kushina's relative, whoever 'Kushina' was (and, given how much the man mentioned her lately, Kakashi could make a polite guess).

Kakashi hadn't cared. He just hoped someone reigned the brat down before he made more of a nuisance of himself to the shinobi.

* * *

><p>That, however, had worked like a jinx. Because the kid had not only not stopped on disrupting the village's already frenzied state (war, after all, affected shinobi the most and then expanded to the civilian populace like a virus), but had maken a single-minded objective of Kakashi himself.<p>

Kakashi was beginning to consider cutting the kid's throat, civilian or not. Surely there was something in the Shinobi rules against _this_. (There wasn't. Kakashi had frowned and asked for the library's most complete copy on The Shinobi Rules, but it still had given no better results.)

Obito, for his part, seemed to take great enjoyment of it, and had already mentioned more than once that he needed to hunt down the little menace to thank him and give him a high five (Kakashi had succinctly answered by saying that two good-for-nothing's getting together would change little but the number of space-waste). Even Rin, who'd been mildly horrified after the prank with the inflamable can of god-knows-what (and he didn't want to know what it had been, the _smell_ alone had been an act of terrorism in itself), was starting to see the humor in it, if the guilty twitching of lips was anything to go with.

It was _hell_, and no matter how much he complained to Minato-sensei so he'd talk to this Kushina and make the brat of her relative stop, there was no end to the pranks.

The only good thing he'd gained from all the pranks had been an increase on his agility and reflexes (and Kakashi would've been ashamed of this if he hadn't seen his sensei, one of the fastest shinobi he knew, fall in one of the kid's pranks when the Kakashi-hunt had barely began). Kakashi would rather die without restoring the family's honor than admit that, though.

* * *

><p>When almost all his spare masks ended up forming part of a flag made of underwear sewed together and tied to a wire that went from a pole to the Hokage Tower, he began to consider allying with some fellow shinobi and make it look like an accident.<p>

The reports would be easy enough to pass through, if those shorts with a leaf pattern and the word 'HOKAGE' spray painted in them were indeed the Sandaime's.

* * *

><p>Kakashi welcomed any mission that got him away from Konoha and his unrepentant prankster, and dreaded coming back after tiring his body and mind on the missions and the way back home. Little sleep was restful enough when sleeping in the open in the middle of a war, and it was no foreign concept to run well into the night before setting up camp, and then leaving at the crack of dawn, to the safety that was the village and its impervious walls.<p>

But Kakashi didn't have even _that_, and it was getting ridiculous. Even if the brat waited a week to go back to pranking him when he came back from a long mission, it meant little to nothing: for all he knew, it just took him a week to realize Kakashi was back. It was unacceptable, and the fact that the Hokage didn't take any measures against the Academy menace made it even worse.

So, pushed to his limits, Kakashi finally snapped. And no matter that the brat somehow managed to dodge the kunai sent his way, the wide-eyed stare he received was somewhat satisfying.

Having the kid incredulously _asking him_ what he was doing, though, made him finger another kunai and entertain the notion of not missing this time before he snapped his answer back.

The kid just scrunched his nose in response, and asked _why he was so high strung about it_. Kakashi reconsidered the idea of killing him quickly for a slow, painful death instead.

But he took a deep breath, regained some composure like any self-preciating shinobi should, and answered in clipped tones.

The kid's answer threw him for a loop.

"You should've just told me, silly!" the kid said, in his high voice of a six years old, and Kakashi fingers twitched against the kunai. "I just wanted to have some fun, not bother you, geez. Come on, let's go eat ramen as an apology, my treat, dattebayo."

And that's how, somehow, Kakashi ended up roped into eating ramen at Ichiraku's with his former tormentor.

* * *

><p>The pranks stopped, but instead Kakashi found himself with unwanted company following him from the training grounds to his home five days out of seven, babbling all the way to and back and with a temper reminiscent of Obito's (even if the kid was better at dodging pointy objects).<p>

Kakashi wasn't sure how to feel about it.


End file.
